Sankey: Satellite camps preceded Harbaugh

Commissioner Greg Sankey wants to set the record straight: The issue of satellite camps wasn’t the Southeastern Conference vs. Jim Harbaugh.

Sankey said Monday at a meeting of the Southeast regional meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors that the issue of what he calls “recruiting tour events” dates at least to 2011 — well before Harbaugh left the San Francisco 49ers for Michigan.

The NCAA’s Division 1 Council shut down the camps Friday, approving a proposal by the SEC and Atlantic Coast Conference. Of the Power Five conferences, only the Big Ten voted in favor of the camps. The issue gained attention last year with Harbaugh’s tour of the South for such camps. He had stops lined up this year in Florida and Alabama — prime SEC recruiting territory. Other matters Sankey discussed:

■ SEC men’s basketball still isn’t measuring up to the league’s standards, he said.

The league had three teams make the NCAA Tournament for the third time in four years. The SEC has hired former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese as a consultant to help find ways to strengthen men’s hoops.

■ In awarding championship sites, the SEC could weigh the state of Mississippi’s recent passage of a law that will let workers cite religious beliefs to deny services to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people.

The league didn’t take South Carolina, Mississippi or Mississippi State out of the rotation for championships held on campuses over the Confederate flag issue.

Sankey said that when the SEC makes “decisions about championship sites, we’ll take into account a variety of issues and state issues like the state flag issue in the past. And this is one that is now emerging that would be part of that conversation as well.”